Hernandez to isolation for month

— -- Aaron Hernandez has been punished for a physical altercation with another inmate by being relocated to a more isolated part of the Bristol County Jail, where he must spend 23 hours a day and eat meals in his cell, according to a local report.

Hernandez was relocated to the more restricted unit for 30 days as a result of a "brief physical altercation," NECN.com reported Wednesday, citing the Bristol County Sheriff's Office in Massachusetts.

"I'm not happy that there may have been a breakdown in our system, in our protocols," Sheriff Tom Hodgson said, according to the website. "When we have failures, the first thing we look at and I look at is, number one, how did this happen? And number two, how do we make sure this doesn't happen again?"

Hernandez must also wear waist chains and leg irons when out of his cell. He had previously been allowed to be out of handcuffs at times.

Citing an unnamed source close to the case, NECN.com reported Hernandez was not in handcuffs during the incident but that the other inmate involved was restrained.

The altercation took place Tuesday in a common area of the Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth where only one inmate at a time is supposed to be out of his cell. It was unclear why Hernandez and the other inmate were out of their cells at the same time, though the jail said it was reviewing the incident and the procedures surrounding it.

Hernandez, a former New England Patriots tight end, is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to murder in the shooting death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd. The Boston man was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée.

He is also being investigated in the deaths of Daniel Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, who were killed in their car in Boston's South End on July 16, 2012. On Wednesday, the families of the two men filed two $6 million wrongful death lawsuits against Hernandez in Suffolk Superior Court, Boston.com reported.

Police obtained video in September that shows Hernandez at a Boston club at the same time as two men who were shot and killed hours later, according to a report by the Hartford Courant.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.